Asking the Bottleneck Blog: Wilshire bus lanes

Times Staff Writer Jean Guccione answers questions about Southern California traffic issues.

Q: How would the proposed bus lanes on Wilshire Boulevard work, and what would be the benefit?

A: Transit officials hope the lanes will shave an average of 12 minutes from a bus ride along Wilshire, which they believe will in turn encourage more commuters to use public transit. Lanes would be restricted to buses and vehicles turning right on weekdays from 7 to 9 a.m. and from 4 to 7 p.m. Converting the existing lanes to bus lanes within the city of Los Angeles would cost as much as $14.million and take 18 months to complete, according to the city report. Widening Wilshire to add an eastbound bus lane between Federal and Barrington avenues would cost an additional $2.million and take three to five years to complete.

What do you think of the Wilshire bus lanes? Hit COMMENT and speak out!

Comments

[Sodha]

Everybody.......this should not be a competiion of subway v. bus lanes. The subway to the sea will be built. Major cities have bus only lanes, don't worry, they don't interfere w/ their construction of rail lines. A bus only lane would encourage people out of cars. I know if there was a bus only lane down Olympic, I would take it from my condo in downtown to century city (hey, you just got a car rider off the roads!). But, right now w/ buses integrated w/ traffic, you don't give me much of an incentive out of my car. Bus only lanes should be encouraged in dense corriders (i.e. Wilshire, Olympic, Ventura blvd, Santa Monica blvd, etc...). Thereby helping to build a public transportation system. We need to stop thinking individually and start thinking about the city.

[clemente]

“The subway to the sea, if ever completed, will take decades to complete”, once and again going back to last October or November, LATimes wrote that the mayor had meet with tunneling experts and discussed the fastest way to build the subway and said that it would take one year and a half from start to grand opening of the subway to the sea. Yes all the way to Santa Monica. This would be done by using many Tunnel boring machines (TBM).

[suzanne]

The traffic on Wilshire Boulevard, during peak hours, without a "bus lane," is extremely heavy. Add "bus lanes," as they attempted to do not long ago, and you are simply doubling the traffic for drivers. I do not believe it will encourage many to take buses, and it will only complicate matters for the majority of drivers. No, on "bus lanes."

[Richard H]

Subway to the sea?

In case anybody is curious, the bill repealing the prohibition on tunneling under Wilshire Blvd. beyond Western Ave. hasn't even gotten out of Committee in the United States Senate yet. It's been sitting there for over two months now.

Not much urgency on the U.S. Senate's part for clearing this legal roadblock to a "subway to the sea".

Check here if you want to check on the REAL status of the Wilshire Subway:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:s.00497:

[Stephen]

The subway to the sea, if ever completed, will take decades to complete. Peak hour bus only lanes, on the other hand, will take just months to finish. It makes sense to provide instant relief, even if a subway decades from now is completed.

[WrightConcept]

Gee only $14 Million dollars for what was originally proposed to be close to $250 Million dollars for Bus Rapid Transit to get the same results, that's worth every penny.

Even with the subway, these bus only lanes are going to be needed anyway, since Wilshire is the city's main spine. Even in New York(Manhattan) down it's main subway trunks and corridors, there's Bus Only lanes running right above them on the street.

In fact, in theory, they can build the Bus only lanes so that they have the ability to reduce the number of subway stations that the Purple Line will have to built thus reducing $$$, which increases the likelyhood that this would get built.

[Alexander Friedman]

Yes, I certainly support the Bus-Only lane on Wilshire (during peak hours).
But it should NOT interfere with building the subway.
We need a subway line along Wilshire Blvd. as soon as possible, there's no doubt about it.
But it will take years to build...
Subway is a great solution, but it's a long-term solution and is still faraway.
So, a Bus-Only lane is needed as a temporary, immediate solution.
It would greatly help while there is no subway yet.

[Andre]

If the subway to the sea will be built then there is no point of spending millions of dollars on bus lanes. You might as well go for the whole thing and build the subway extension along Wilshire to Santa Monica.